Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1965
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
Buy Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet' is a 1965 American science fiction film, one of two versions adapted for Roger Corman from the Soviet science fiction film 'Planeta Bur' ('Planet of Storms'), scripted by Aleksandr Kazantsev (from his novel) and directed by Pavel Klushantsev. Curtis Harrington oversaw the editing and dubbing of principal portions of the source film, and directed new principal scenes featuring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue. The resulting new film was syndicated directly to television by American-International Television Inc.
Plot
The film essentially follows the storyline of the Soviet original, with Rathbone and Domergue replacing two Soviet actors in roles as space-station monitors of the primary action. The rest stars the remaining Soviet actors dubbed into English.
In this retelling, it is 2020 and the Moon has been colonized. After traveling 200,000,000 miles, the first group of men land on Venus, where they find a mist-shrouded prehistoric world in which the crew are attacked by various monsters and giant plants.
Cast
* Basil Rathbone as Professor Hartman
* Faith Domergue as Dr. Marsha Evans
* Vladimir Yemelyanov (miscredited) as Cmdr. Brendan Lockhart
* Georgiy Zhzhonov (miscredited as "Kurt Boden") as Hans Walters
* Gennadi Vernov (miscredited as "Robert Chantal") as Andre Ferneau
* Georgiy Teich (miscredited) as Kern
* Yuri Sarantsev (miscredited) as Sherman
* Boris Prudkovsky1964 USSR free wrestling champion. (uncredited) as Robot John
Production
Roger Corman purchased the rights to 'Planet of Storms' (the Soviet film 'Planeta Bur') and used footage from 'Mechte Navstrechu' ('A Dream Come True'), as well as footage from the Soviet science fiction film 'Nebo Zovyot' ('Battle Beyond the Sun'). to create both 'Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet' and 'Queen of Blood'.
The American-made scenes were shot at the same time as 'Queen of Blood', another science fiction film directed by Harrington that was developed around the story of, and footage used from, Soviet science fiction films. Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue shot their scenes in half a day wearing the same costumes and shot on the same set used for 'Queen of Blood'.
Harrington later recalled: "It had to do with a couple of people orbiting the planet Venus. So, I had, instead of the Soviet actors, Faith Domergue orbiting the planet Venus. Then all the scenes with the Russians were dubbed in English. She was in touch with Basil Rathbone, who was supposedly on a Moon station. Thats all I shot. I shot about a day or two with her as she was in that ship orbiting around planet Venus. All the rest of it was just dubbed stuff".
While Harrington considered 'Queen of Blood' good enough to keep his name on it, he is screen-credited on 'Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet' as "John Sebastian", derived from Johann Sebastian Bach.
Reception
In a retrospective on Soviet science fiction film, British director Alex Cox called 'Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet' "an act of cinematic cannibalism". 'Creature Feature' gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, saying that it looked like it was spliced together with Elmer's Glue.Stanley, J. (20000 Creature Feature 3rd Edition Writing for AllMovie, critic Paul Gaita described the film as a "simplistic science fiction-adventure" that was "imaginative and highly visual" with "some impressive special effects".
See also
* 'Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women' the other film adapted from material from 'Planeta Bur' for Roger Corman
* List of American films of 1965
Notes
References
Buy Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1965